


Honour Among Thieves

by Zoadgo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Thief AU, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:27:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clarke's father had been killed because of decisions made by the company he worked for, Clarke decided she needed to get out of the life where death threats were something to be idly discussed over breakfast. A pickpocket working her father's funeral provides just such an out for her. Her new life isn't exactly safer, but Clarke adapts to it quickly, determined to be the best thief she can be. Years after leaving his tutelage, Clarke runs into the pickpocket in the most inconvenient way possible, with him breaking into the art gallery that she's currently stealing a painting from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honour Among Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> _anonymous tumblr prompt- "clarphy thieves au: both show up to steal the same painting."_

Growing up, everyone had thought Clarke would be a doctor, like her mother. The furthest anyone deviated from that prediction was to say maybe she would be a lawyer, because really, she was smart enough to do anything that she set her mind to. Everyone had always agreed that she would spend somewhere between six and eight years in university to do something amazing, though. And up until she was seventeen, Clarke was inclined to agree with them.

But then things changed, starting with her father’s death. Her parents received death threats fairly regularly, being public images of a well known pharmaceutical corporation. They never took them that seriously, simply following the same safety precautions they always had. The threat belonging to the man who had shot her father before turning the gun on himself didn’t even stand out from the rest. _Your medication could have saved my wife’s life, but we couldn’t afford it. I will make you feel my pain if it’s the last thing I do._ The letter had been addressed to her mother, who had never even seen it. 

The death had shaken Clarke’s mother deeply, but Clarke hadn’t been that surprised. Yes, she was sad, and she mourned the loss of her father, but while her mother had been inconsolable and blind with grief at the funeral, Clarke still had her wits about her. That was what had allowed her to see the boy in a dark suit moving through the crowds, with sharp cheekbones and a prominent nose that Clarke knew there was no way she wouldn’t remember. And since she knew everyone who was invited to the private funeral, that meant he was not supposed to be there.

She could have reported him to any of the ridiculous number of security guards around the crowd, but she wanted to see why he was there. It could have been an attempt on her mother’s life, or hers, or any of the very important businessmen and women in attendance, but something about his movements made her doubt that. There was no desperation in the way he moved amongst the people, and he didn’t seem to have any set goal in mind. No, he was just aimlessly moving through the rich and powerful gathered to mourn one of their own, hands drifting restlessly in and out of his pockets.

It was when Clarke focused on the movement of his hands that she realized his purpose for being there. It wasn’t just _his_ pockets that his hands were dipping into. That only confirmed in her mind that she had made the right decision in not reporting him to the guards, and she had to smother a vindictive smile. Good, let him steal from the bastards whose corrupt morals had caused her father’s death. Those gathered were the ones responsible for pricing, distribution, and production of the medication that her father and mother formulated. They were the ones who should have been in that coffin.

Watching the pickpocket empty unguarded suit jackets and open topped purses took Clarke’s focus away from her mother and the descent of her father’s body into the earth. She was not interested in the death that they had been warned about a hundred times a day by a hundred different people. No, she was interested in the boy taking advantage of a gathering of the vultures who grew bloated and complacent off the suffering of the poor. Her father’s death had shown Clarke how corrupt her world was, and this boy was showing her a way to strike back at it.

Cornering him after the funeral was easy. Persuading the pickpocket, who would only give her the name “Murphy” when she threatened to turn him in, to teach her everything he knew, not so much. But it turns out everyone had been right when they said she could be anything she put her mind to.

```

Clarke shakes herself out of the memory that had stolen over her half-conscious brain, her phone buzzing softly against her thigh twice to alert her that it was time to move. Dozing in a stall in the bathroom of an art gallery had been a calculated risk, but Clarke’s life had been made up of such dangers since the day she’d forced Murphy to be her teacher. She resolutely pushes the first of her instructors - far from being the last as he had known very little save for how to be stealthy - out of her mind as she slowly uncurls her legs, checking each fiber of muscle and shift of her joints to ensure nothing cramped to the point that it might trip her up.

Clarke takes a moment after exiting the stall to stretch, loving the legislation that prevents the placement of security cameras in bathrooms. She knows it wasn’t put into place to help prospective thieves, but it might as well have been. Lord knows it plays heavily enough into most of her plans.

The mirror reveals the varying shades of dark and warm grey of Clarke's outfit, which looks respectable enough, compared to the lycra catsuit one might expect from a thief about to steal a painting valued at over half a million dollars. The stereotypical image of a thief was actually horribly innacurate, as Clarke had learned in her first few years. Usually the easiest way to break into a place was to simply walk in wearing an unspectacular outfit, Clarke’s current one looking similar enough to half of the art snobs that visited this particular gallery, and just wait for security to close up around you. 

Her current clothing choice is practical and cut close to her body, save for the infinity scarf wrapped around her neck. That, Clarke shifts to her head, tucking it close around her mouth and ensuring all her hair is concealed beneath it. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had the right connections to learn how to compromise the security feeds, but for now she has to make do with sticking to shadows and being quick. Well, that and having coated the inside of the night guard’s coffee mug with a pretty powerful tranquilizer. He should be at the very least dozing by now.

Clarke slips out of the bathroom silently, finding her first point of cover quickly. It’s not a blind spot for the camera, but it’s right on the edge of its field of vision and holds a dark enough shadow that she shouldn’t stand out too much. She doesn’t linger, knowing the longer she stays in the gallery, the more chances the guard will wake up and decide to walk off his weariness. Clarke glides from shadow to shadow, thanking the fact that employing a night staff meant this gallery doesn’t have motion sensors. Clarke hates motion sensors.

Her target isn’t hard to find, a relatively pleasing abstract colour painting illuminated by a spotlight, like all the other works of art in the room. It’s horribly overpriced, but there are buyers out there that Clarke’s been in roundabout contact with, so she’s in no position to judge the value of it. She simply wants to grab it and run, but she forces herself to keep to her creeping path through the shadows, ignoring the frustrating heat of the scarf over her mouth, a necessary evil to muffle the sounds of her breathing and obscure her image on any cameras that may catch a glimpse of her.

Clarke is standing in front of the painting, her fingers just about to brush against the canvas and lift it carefully from the wall, when she hears the first sign of anything going wrong. It’s not the sound she would have expected, nothing like the groan of the security guard waking up or an approaching siren. No, it’s the sound of the back door that was to be her exit opening and closing.

Clarke grabs the painting quickly and whirls towards the exit, not knowing what to expect, except for the fact that someone triggering the silent alarm by entering from the outside means she has less than two minutes before cops are there. No matter what she thought she would see, nothing could have prepared Clarke for seeing familiar sharp features staring at her in shock that is quickly concealed. She had been right, all those years ago at the funeral, there was no way she would ever forget that nose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Clarke’s voice is the barest whisper as she walks up to Murphy, impending discovery and arrest momentarily forgotten. 

He stares at her for another precious moment, new surprise briefly crossing his features, and Clarke uses his delay in response to quickly glance over him. The years since she’d last seen him had done him no harm. In fact, he looks far better than he had, every angle of his face seeming somehow more honed and attractive, where she had once found his looks to be almost alien. He’s just as pale, but it suits him just as it had years before. With the extra inches he’s put on, he almost seems like he should be starring in a terrible tween movie about vampires with feelings, although she knows the only feelings Murphy is capable of are derision and rage, unless you count sarcasm as an emotion. 

“Thanks for grabbing my painting,” Murphy smiles, a grin more than a little patronizing which only stokes Clarke’s anger at him for interrupting her work, “but we should really run before the cops get here, don’t you think?”

Clarke clenches her jaw against a response and pushes past him to the exit. She doesn’t check to see if Murphy follows her, hoping he won’t but knowing he likely will, instead sprinting through familiar alleyways as soon as she’s clear of the door. It would be far better for her if he didn’t follow. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, him constantly questioning why she wanted to be a criminal and mocking her family status, implying she was just doing this to try and rat other thieves out to the authorities, her responding by punching him in the face one night and leaving to find a different instructor. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and she hadn’t run into him since, but she can’t imagine he’s forgotten.

Unfortunately, Clarke hears footsteps following her immediately, the cadence of his running gait still familiar to her. She had spent the longest with Murphy, unlearning her privileged lifestyle more than anything. She ignores the memories of him waking her in the middle of the night and chasing her through streets in order to teach her that her life wasn’t safe anymore, shutting them out in favour of securing her grasp on the painting and scanning the fire escapes for a specific shade of faded, flaking red paint.

There. In a move Clarke had practiced many times, she leaps onto a nearby dumpster and jumps onto the lowest of the fire escapes, pausing only a second to be certain of her footing before beginning her ascent. There’s no way to be silent on the rusted metal, but both her and Murphy make less noise than the average person would. Their steps are quick but light, and they carry them rapidly to the roof.

Clarke wishes she could outrun Murphy, lose him on the rooftops and in the alleyways below, but she knows she doesn’t have a hope of that. She may know this city better than most of the people living in it, but Murphy is the one who taught it to her, he learned the form of it and wrote it into the very core of his being. It’s tempting to stop on that roof, considering it’s unlikely any pursuit would climb to search for them, but Clarke navigates onto a different building just to be safe.

As soon as she’s on the rooftop that she wants, sheltered behind a shack that could house any number of things behind its flimsy lock, Clarke wraps the painting carefully in the scarf the had been obscuring her face and sets it aside on top of a convenient wooden crate. She ensures that it’s safe there for the moment, no overhanging pigeon nests and exposed corners available to decrease its value, and then she turns on the man behind her. Clarke stands with her hands on her hips and glares at Murphy.

“Is this your revenge, huh? Trying to ruin my job because I tried to ruin your nose once?” Clarke doesn’t bother about keeping her voice down. Now, they’ll just sound like one of the hundreds of couples in the city that has arguments of varying volumes each night.

“You’ve got it all wrong, princess,” Clarke clenches her jaw at the familiar nickname that Murphy had only ever used when she was being exceptionally dense about the realities of her new life. His tone is slightly different this time, more teasing than scornful, but the memories are the same. “I came to do my job, and you almost got me caught by slowing me down.”

Clarke counts to ten, crossing her arms over her chest and resisting the urge to replicate their last parting. She’s willing to bet that if she punched him again, she wouldn’t fail to break his nose this time. She’s had a lot more practice. Instead, Clarke favours him with a patronizing look of her own.

“You call lumbering into a gallery and tripping the silent alarm a job? You would’ve gotten caught without any help from me, criminal.” 

Murphy just chuckles and rubs the back of his hand across his nose, a habit he’d had for at least as long as Clarke had known him. “Criminal, really? That’s the best you can do?” Murphy takes half a step closer to Clarke, but she stands her ground. She has no reason to feel inferior to him, not any more.

“It’s fitting. And I figure no insult is going to sting more than you going home with empty hands and an empty wallet tonight when I leave with _my_ painting, so why should I waste the energy on you.”

“My wallet’s never empty, you know that, princess.” That nickname again, but it definitely sounds like an old joke, rather than the condemnation it once had been. Clarke wonders if the change is because she’s toughened up, or if Murphy’s gotten softer. 

“I had hoped your fortunes might have fallen since the last time we worked the crowds.” 

Murphy stumbles back a step and dramatically clasps a hand over his chest with a laugh. “Ouch, that hurts. And here I’d been hoping for nothing but the best for you. I guess I underestimated your ability to hold a grudge.” 

“I’m not holding a grudge. You’re the one who tried to ruin my job,” Clarke’s brow furrows, but in confusion rather than frustration. Most of her anger at Murphy is gone, she’s finding it difficult to dislike him now on principle of the hard lessons he has taught her. The man in front of her seems to be full of sarcastic, good-natured wit, and stands in sharp contrast to the angry boy that she remembers. 

“I already told you, I wasn’t trying to ruin your job, I was just trying to do mine,” Murphy shrugs and quirks one corner of his mouth. “I have to admit, I was shocked to see someone there, it was even more surprising when you talked and it turned out it was you. I’m glad to know the the stories of the stubborn blonde thief were about you, though. I always did think you had it in you to be one of the greats.”

Clarke shakes her head to clear her confusion and steps towards Murphy, “No, you didn’t.”

Murphy rolls his eyes and sighs, favouring her with a look rather than words that says clearly enough how ridiculous he thinks her denial is. Clarke gives another small shake of her head and jabs him in the chest with a finger.

“No, no, you always thought I was too weak and spoiled, that I would end up crawling back to my mother. You told me that enough times, I should think I’d know what your opinion of me was.”

“Of course that’s what I told you, Clarke. I thought you had it in you to be great, but you were never going to get good if I was nice to you,” Murphy shrugs again and brushes her hand away from his chest, “I figured it was on me to toughen you up so that one day you could show us all how it was done. And you have to admit, I did a pretty good job.”

The smile on his face is genuine, and what he’s saying makes just enough sense to knock Clarke’s world just a little off balance. She had always strived to be better to prove Murphy wrong, even though she’d known she was more skilled than him when she left his tutelage. But he had made it seem like skill wasn’t enough, that he would never think she was good because she hadn’t been raised on the streets. Never mind that she chose their scum and decay because it felt so much cleaner than the rot of big business, she would never be good enough until the double dealings and back alley travel of the city were etched into her very bones. She had despised Murphy for a long time because he had made her feel inadequate, but Clarke couldn’t deny that she was far better suited to this life because of his treatment, harsh as it may have been. She let’s go of the last of her resentment, never too stubborn to change her opinion in the presence of overwhelming facts, and she smirks a little at Murphy.

“Well, if I’m one of the greats-”

“I said you _could be_ , not you are.”

“-there’s no way in hell you’re getting my painting.”

Murphy steps into what little space there is between them and smiles down at Clarke. What would have read as an intimidation tactic through the veil of an unrecognized grudge now reads entirely differently to Clarke, and she finds that she doesn’t mind overly much. She’d always found Murphy vaguely attractive, and he’d only gotten better with maturity.

“It was never your painting, princess, it’s mine and you were just kind enough to carry it for me for a while. Thanks for that, by the way.” 

Clarke favours Murphy with an exasperated look, warmed slightly by her small grin, “I’m no princess, criminal.” 

Murphy halves the distance between their faces before replying, “Well, why don’t you prove it.”

Clarke brings her arms up and wraps them behind Murphy’s neck, dragging him slightly closer and noting the way that his eyes can’t seem to help but flicker to her lips. When they’re just centimeters away, Clarke pauses and smiles, moving past Murphy’s lips to bring her mouth to his ear.

“Maybe I’ll do just that,” Clarke whispers to Murphy, moving before he has a chance to respond.

She takes a half step back to bring enough space between them that she can put her hand on Murphy’s shoulder and shove with some force, propelling him back into the side of the shed. He lets out a small huff of air as he collides with the rough wood, but Clarke doesn’t give him a chance to properly recover his breath before stepping forward and placing one hand on the wall next to his head, the other reaching behind his neck and finding its way into his hair.

Clarke debates just leaving him now, having teased him with a glimpse of what he could have if she chose to give it to him, but she takes a heartbeat too long making her mind up. Long ago, she had made a rule for herself, when she first saw the boy in the dark suit stealing money from the rich: if she was taking too long to decide if she should do something or not, she always went with whatever her gut wanted in the first place, logic be damned. That was what had brought her to the streets, and it had kept her alive and entertained so far.

So Clarke presses forward and closes the distance between them, meshing their lips together and hoping Murphy will make it worth her while. As is, she’s going to be late to meet with her fence, but she’s willing to bear Nygel’s disappointed lecture as long as she gets something out of the delay.

Murphy meets her kiss eagerly, his lips moving against hers and his hands finding their way to her hips. Clarke twists her hand in his hair a bit, enjoying the soft grunt he lets out as she pulls it a little. His hands tighten on her hips in response, fingers digging into her jeans and the soft flesh just about, and Clarke bites his lip in retaliation. Their kiss becomes as much a fight as anything between them has ever been, but Clarke has the upper hand as she pulls Murphy’s head back by his hair and trails bites down his neck, drawing not so soft curses from him.

“Fucking christ, Clarke,” Clarke hears her name spill from his lips when she bites at the base of his neck, and she smiles into his skin. What she’s about to do is cruel, but she considers it well earned payback.

“Exactly right, “Clarke”, not “princess”. Not too hard to remember, huh?” Clarke steps back with a wicked grin, plucking Murphy’s hands off of her and letting them fall at his sides. He stares at her in confusion, and Clarke darts in to peck one more quick kiss on his lips before turning and grabbing her painting.

“I’ve got my painting, and you got something out of this whole situation, I think we’re even now.” 

Clarke flees over the rooftops and into the alleys below before Murphy can recover, heading for her rendezvous as the smog over the city begins to take on the pink hue of sunrise. Her parting statement is true, and she smiles, considering the fact that if they ever meet again, they won’t have to waste most of their time with her being angry at him. And given how well Murphy knows he city, Clarke doubts that she’ll have to wait too long.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Murphy's plan was just to run in, grab the painting, and run away. Even in AUs he's still not the brightest bulb, but we love him anyway.
> 
> So, this prompt is over 9 months old and I doubt the anon is even waiting for it anymore, but I finally filled it! It's literally the oldest message in my inbox, below 78 other prompts for varying lengths of fics. I try my best to keep up with prompts, but it's not always the easiest combined with wanting to write my own ideas, so if y'all send me stuff on tumblr, don't be surprised if I'm absolutely shit about filling it. As always, credit goes to the loveliest of the chilly planets, [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com) for salvaging my work from the mess that it starts as.
> 
> Feel free to come chat with me [on tumblr](http://jonnmurphy.tumblr.com) and thanks in advance for commenting/viewing/leaving kudos <3


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